Readme file for 
The Benefits of Commitment to a Currency Peg: Aggregate Lessons from the Regional
Effects of the 1896 U.S. Presidential Election
Scott Fulford and Felipe Schwartzman
Review of Economics and Statistics

**** Data construction files

Data prep 1.do 
Takes data from Weber Dissagregate\ and compares to 1887_1900_merged_v2.dta and 1901_1907_merged.dta which we created from our own, independent OCR and correction of the call reports
Creates: 
National_bank_call_reports.dta
National_bank_call_reports_aggregate.dta (summed over all states)	


Data prep 2.do 
Takes National_bank_call_reports.dta and combines reserve cities with their state except for the select central reserve cities.
Creates
National_bank_call_reports_states.dta


Data prep 3.do
Takes data from National_bank_call_reports_states.dta and prepares it for the factor analysis by seasonally adjusting, demeaning and removing of series that don't have observations for all the sample period. 
Produces data that is then pasted into data_wide.xls


Data prep 4.do
Takes monthly indicators of aggregate activity and converts them to the call-date frequencies used in the factor analysis
Produces excel data file y.xls


gen_mats.m
Takes data which is in data_wide.xls and y.xls, converts it into a "per day" format to regularize the different lengths between call-dates and generates matlab matrices to be used for the factor analysis.


run_alternatives.m
Sets up different alternative specifications for factor analysis and constructs tables 3, 4, A3, A4  and A5

FAVAR functions
Folder with the various functions called by run_alternatives.m to estimate the FAVARs and produce the tables




**** Analysis files using Stata Version 14.1


Make_aggregate_leverage_figure.do
Creates aggregate leverage Figure A-4 (National bank leverage) and Figure 1 (Aggregate national bank assets and liabilities)

Make_graph_of_VAR_variables.do 
Creates Figure A-8 in appendix ( Economic measures and counterfactuals when credibility uncertainty removed)

Make_credibility_figures.do 
Creates graphs showing credibility index with other variables, Figure 3 (The credibility index, silver in the news, Treasury gold, the gold premium, and bank leverage), Figure A-6 (The credibility index and the cumulative difference between average change in leverage in top pre-1890 specie states and bottom specie states) 

Compare_State_banks.do
Creates Figure A-2 (Leverage for national, state, and all commercial banks, 1880–1909) and Figure A-3 (Fraction of assets “currency and coin” in state and national banks, 1896)

change_leverage_gold_uses_figures_regressions.do
Creates Figure 2 (Gold use and changes in bank deposits around the 1896 election), Table 1 (Change in Bank Leverage Around the 1896 Election), and Table 2 (The Change in Bank Leverage Around the 1896 Election and other dates), Table A-1 ( Change in Bank Leverage Around the 1896 Election including bonds to secure circulation), Table A-2 (Change in Bank Leverage Around the 1896 Election, Additional Variations), Figure A-5 (  Leverage and specie holding around the 1896 election)


Make_silver-gold_figure.do
Creates Figure A-1 (Ratio of gold to silver spot prices in international commodity markets)



**** Data files
Gold and silver prices from GFD
silver prices GFD.xlsx
gold prices GFD.xlsx


Capital_flows.xlsx: collects various series that are used in the analysis. Some are read directly from the excel file, other sheets are first saved as a csv. Sources are in intro sheet.

Weber Disaggregate/: National bank call report data entered by Weber

New York Times free coinage dates.txt : Text analysis of mentions in the New York Times of "free coinage"

bankdata-hist_text/   U.S. HISTORICAL DATA ON BANK MARKET STRUCTURE collected and entered by Mark D. Flood 